Brief Encounters
by HaveALolli
Summary: A supply run in which two worlds collide, smart-ass comments are made, and an angel learns his manners. [As of now, just one chapter. I might add more if 'inspiration strikes'.]
1. 1: Of First Greetings

**Of First Greetings**

* * *

Alec hated waiting. He hated knowing that he could be doing something else, something that might be saving lives, and instead he had to sit on a bench in Central Park and wait for a demon that may or may not show up.

He sighed irritably and tapped his finger against the metal armrest, shifting his weight impatiently. He looked to his left to see Jace sitting a fair distance away from him, on a similar park bench, sprawled out and taking up the whole thing. Typical.

Clary was supposed to be there as well, but had cancelled last minute when she and Isabelle were called off to a mission. He couldn't remember the details exactly, but it was something involving two mundanes, and an angel who appeared to have a soft spot for them. He'd been doubtful about the whole thing at first; angels almost never came down to Earth, but the Clave seemed adamant in checking it out, so he'd sent two of his best Nephilim.

In fact, the only reason he hadn't sent Jace, too, was for ruining his and Magnus's date night by showing up at their apartment, claiming that the Institute needed Alec very desperately, and demanding he come with him at once. The 'emergency' turned out to be that the toilet was clogged, and Jace didn't care for maintenance duties.

After an hour of waiting, the demon finally showed it's face. They lured it into a more private place, so they wouldn't inadvertently mentally scar any mundanes who happened to be passing by, and sent it back to Hell with three swipes of Jace's blade and one well-aimed arrow from Alec's bow. Carefully making sure their weapons of destruction were stowed and Glamoured, they made their way back to the Institute.

Alec was putting his bow back in the weapons room when his phone rang. Looking down to see that his sister was the one doing the calling, he answered.

"Izzy. How'd it go?" Jace looked up from stashing his own weapons at the sound of her name, just as intent as Alec to hear how the mission went.

"Well, it's definitely an angel."

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What is an angel doing in New York, at three in the afternoon, on a Sunday?"

"Uh, he says he's…" Izzy hesitated, sounding unsure of what she'd been told. "He says he's been down here, on Earth, for awhile."

He was silent for a moment, thinking. "How long is 'awhile'?"

"That, he didn't say."

Taking a deep breath, he nodded. "Alright, and the mundanes?"

"They're with him, apparently. They call themselves 'Hunters', except they're not Nephilim. They're just… humans, who've gotten ahold of a few of our blades, somehow."

"What? Like, _our_ blades? _New York's_ blades? Izzy, the Clave will de-rune me if they find out that—"

"Relax, Alec! They're not New York's. I… I don't know where they come from. They don't _look_ like Seraph blades, but they must be…"

"Izzy, bring them here. It'll be a lot easier to sort this out if we can talk face-to-face, and I can see them myself."

"Okay, me and Clary will—" Izzy's voice was cut off by a sudden gasp, and the phone call ended shortly after.

"Izzy? Izzy! What happened? Isabelle!" Alec's panicked gaze shot to Jace's confused one. "Jace, something's happened."

The blond boy's gaze slipped over his shoulder, and focused on something behind him. His expression became even more bewildered, and Alec spun around. To his surprise, he saw that his sister, Clary, and three strangers were standing a few feet away from him.

The first, a tall man with shaggy brown hair and a plaid button-up, held a bottle of water and a curved knife with strange markings. The second, a handsome man with shorter hair, was struggling to extricate his hands from Izzy's whip, which had curled itself securely around his wrists. The third was wearing a long beige trench coat and blinked his blue eyes at Alec, his expression unreadable.

Alec stumbled backwards, snatching up an arrow and quickly drawing his bow, aiming it at the three foreigners. Izzy and Clary, looking thoroughly spooked, scrambled away from them as well, while the strangers looked completely unbothered by their own sudden appearance.

"W-what just hap-happened?" stuttered Clary, rushing over to stand by Jace's side.

The man in the long coat furrowed his eyebrows. "You said to bring them here, did you not?" None of them made any move to confirm his question, and instead readied their own weapons against the mundanes, who appeared to be preparing themselves for a fight. "Sam, Dean, put those down."

The mundanes hesitated, then lowered their weapons. "What the hell, Cass?" muttered the short-haired mundane. "You're supposed to blip us _away_ from the psychos with the knives and whips, not to their lair!"

Cass, who he supposed was the angel of the three, tilted his head in annoyance toward the man who had spoken. "Dean, they are not psychotics. They are Nephilim."

" _Nephilim?_ " repeated the tall one, Sam. He gave Alec a suspicious glance.

Dean turned his head toward Alec, narrowing his eyes. "We put our weapons down, Robin Hood, now it's time to do the same."

"And I should listen to you because…?" challenged Alec, his eyes fixed on Dean's, and his arrow pointed directly as his forehead.

"Because I just sent nineteen demons back to Hell, and I'd really like to make it an even twenty—"

"Dean, these are not demons. They are Nephilim."

"Yeah, you keep saying that, Cass, but I don't know what the hell that _means,_ " said Dean.

" _Nephilim_ means half-human, half-angel," clarified Jace, raising a Seraph blade menacingly.

Dean considered this for a moment, before smirking and saying, "Best of both worlds, huh? Good for you, Hannah Montana, but that doesn't mean you won't kill us."

"They won't kill you," insisted Cass.

"Death is much too pleasant, anyway. How'd you like a _rune_ , mundane?" hissed Alec, eyeing the stele on the table behind Sam, and debating whether or not he should make a run to grab it.

The two mundanes exchanged a look, then laughed. "I'm not sure where you got the idea that death was pleasant, but I can assure you, it is _not._ "

Alec stepped closer. "Just tell me what you're doing in my institute."

Dean put his hands in the air, and jerked his head toward the angel. "Ask him. He's the one that put us here." He shifted his eyes to Cass, who was as calm as when he'd first arrived.

"I brought us here because they can help." The angel stepped forward. He waved his hand slightly and the Nephilim's weapons were gone from their hands, and back on their racks. Alec took a step back, before bowing his head slightly in respect. "I am Castiel, an angel of the Lord, and I am in need of supplies. Do you carry new angelic weapons here?"

He swallowed. This must be how Sam and Dean had acquired Seraph blades. Castiel had obtained them from various institutes, then distributed them. The angel frowned. "Seraph weapons exist in more forms than blades. I did not steal them from your institutes."

He was momentarily taken aback, as it had been so long since he'd interacted with an angel that he'd forgotten they can sometimes read minds. Alec bowed his head again. "Yes, sorry, your Grace. We carry Seraph blades and steles."

"I have no use for steles, nor do my companions, but thank you."

"Izzy, Clary, give him the fresh batch we received this morning," said Alec. The two girls nodded and led Castiel away, toward the entrance.

Dean and Sam exchanged another amused glance. "Did you just say 'Your Grace'?" said Sam, raising his eyebrows, and Alec's eyes darted back to the boy.

"Of course I did," he said, frowning. These mundanes had no respect for their superiors.

Dean chuckled. "Oh, I see. You're their bitches."

"Excuse me?" said Jace, his hands balling into fists.

"Bitches. You know… yes-men, kiss-asses… bitches! You do whatever they say, in exchange for little pats on the head and praise." Dean laughed again, and the two Nephilim narrowed their eyes.

"We do what they say because they're _angels,_ and we do it in exchange for weapons."

"Whatever you say," said Dean, and he could tell Jace was going to add something more, but cut him off before he could speak. "What is this place, anyway? Where are we?"

Alec gave Jace a glance, and jerked his head toward the stele behind Sam, which he set off retrieving. "New York," relied Alec, turning back to the the two so-called 'Hunters'. "You're in the New York Institute."

"And what's that?" said Sam curiously.

"It's… a bit like a school, a bit like… everything, really. A home-away-from-home, equipped with a gym, weapons, and take-out menus."

Dean perked up at that. "You guys got any pie here?"

"No… but there's a Biggerson's just a few blocks away that makes great pie and burgers," said Alec, and Dean turned excitedly to his companion, who shook his head irritatedly.

"You said weapons… what exactly do you _do?_ " Sam turned his attention away from Dean and looked intently to Alec for his response.

"We keep you ingrates safe from demons," added Jace, and the two mundanes' brows shot back into the air. "And Seraph blades are the only thing that kills the bastards."

"You've got a strange definition of 'safe'," muttered Sam.

"No, it's not strange. It's straight-up _wrong._ " Dean approached Alec, as Jace rejoined him and handed him a stele. He stuck out his hand, and smiled widely.

"Dean." He gestured to the man behind him. "And that's Sam. You are…?"

"Alec."

"Jace."

"Well, weird to meet 'cha Alex and Jace."

" _Leck._ " He scowled. His name wasn't that hard, yet people always seemed to get it wrong.

Dean frowned. "What?"

"Ah- _leck._ Not Alex. _Never_ Alex."

"Got it. Never Alex," he said, as Castiel, Clary, and Izzy reentered the room with a neatly wrapped parcel. "Oh! Cass, can you blip us to the Biggerson's right down the block? Sam says no, but I hear they make great pie and—"

"No, Dean." Clary and Izzy handed the angel two smaller boxes, and Castiel then promptly handed all of them to Sam and Dean, who took them begrudgingly. "We can get pie after this whole thing is over."

Dean sulked, and Castiel turned to the four Nephilim in front of him. "We must take our leave now."

"Wait, Cass," said Sam. "What do we say when we meet nice people who give us killing things?"

"I'm not sure, we have never had an experience quite like this before, so we have not yet made a tradition of saying something when the encounter is over." Sam looked displeased, and Dean sighed and whispered something into his ear. "Oh, of course. Thank you for your generosity."

"Was that so hard?" mumbled Sam.

"We bid you good-bye and do a better job _at_ your job Jace, Never Alex, and two hot chicks!" exclaimed Dean happily and with a soft flap of wings, they were gone. Jace, Never Alex, and the two hot chicks sat in processing silence for a minute or so after they were gone.

"Well, that was weird," blurted out Jace, and they all readily agreed.


	2. 2: The Bane Complex

"And if it's still there?" inquired Sam, one eyebrow raised.

"We don't have to kill it," he said, turning the sleek black car down a dimly lit street and pulling into an empty parking space beside the sidewalk. He cut the engine and turned to his brother. "We'll just give it a warning. You know, scare 'em."

Sam frowned, and they both exited the car. Popping open the trunk, they loaded their firearms and prepared the rest of their weapons, and all the while Sam grumbled on about righteous behavior that they needed to exhibit. Sliding the last of the bullets into the barrel, Dean closed the trunk and turned his attention to the building behind him. Though it was dark outside—almost midnight, according to his phone—the streetlights kept the place illuminated satisfactorily.

It was an industrial walk-up that had been renovated into apartments. The bricks were dirty and ill-maintained, and as soon as the two brothers entered they found that the interior was in no better condition. They hiked up the rickety stairs as quietly as possible until they reached the third floor. Dean crept over to the door, taking a deep breath and carefully trying the handle.

Locked.

He pursed his lips, and Sam appeared at his side. His brother produced a lock-pick and immediately went to work. Dean pressed his ear up to the door. He didn't hear anything, but that didn't mean that the place was empty.

The lock clicked softly, and Sam and Dean exchanged a look. Slowly, Sam turned the handle and pushed the door open. It creaked slightly, making them wince, but no fiery blasts of deadly magic came to expel them from the apartment just yet. Raising their guns, they slipped inside and looked around. Unlike the rest of the building, the apartment itself was well-kept. Luxurious pieces of furniture and plush rugs littered the place, and expensive-looking art adorned the brick walls.

"Well, I guess when you're a practically-immortal witch with nothing but time, money seems to come your way." Sam gave him an exasperated look, to which Dean responded with a grin.

"I'll take those three doors," said Sam, gesturing to the doors on the left. "You take the other two." Dean nodded, and they silently went to work making sure that nobody was home.

One of the rooms turned out to be a bathroom, and therefore very uninteresting, but the second made him pause for a moment. It was the master suite of the apartment, and the witch had spared no expense on it. Scarlet and gold sheets were spread tightly over the king-sized bed, and warm silk curtains hung from the windows. A dressing table stood to the right of him with make-up products organized meticulously along it's edge, and a jewelry box pushed to the corner that was slightly ajar. A few clothes were strewn about on the floorboards, but other than that, the room was nearly spotless.

Dean reemerged into the living room to find his brother rifling through a drawer, and he turned when he heard him enter.

"Good, so he's gone." Sam returned to his search, and Dean hesitated.

"Yeah, about that… are we sure that this witch is… is a dude?"

"What do you mean?" said Sam, frowning. He shut the drawer and moved on to the next one.

"Well, I just found a butt-load of make-up and jewelry in the bedroom." Dean's eyes wandered around the room once more. "And this whole place looks… feminine."

Sam laughed softly, and looked at him. "Just because it's well-furnished doesn't make it girly."

"What about the make-up? That either makes 'him' a 'her', or him a drag queen. Oh, wait. Are we dealing with a gay witch, here? Shit. I don't want to have my outfit insulted."

Sam hesitated, gently shutting the drawer and giving it some thought. "Maybe he's got a girlfriend. Or a wife."

"Or a husband," came an unknown voice from the entryway. The two brother's heads whipped around to the strange voice to find that a tall, dark-haired man was standing in the doorway, looking considerably displeased. His clothes were eccentric, to say the very least. Rings dotted his fingers and a variety of thin necklaces hung loosely from his neck. Dark eyeliner was traced under his eyes, explaining the make-up in the bedroom.

His hands twitched and a faint blue haze was emitted, and then Sam and Dean were being flung to the other side of the room. They landed roughly on the opposite wall, pinned there by the witch's magic, as he approached the two of them curiously.

"I ought to throw you both out that window," said the witch, cocking his head toward the large glass pane to his right. The three-story fall would be a painful one, Dean supposed, and he was relieved when the man reconsidered. "But I'm a little too curious as to why two mundanes were not only able to break past my wards undetected, but also why they would want to."

With another lazy flick of his fingers, Dean was sliding down the wall and landing painfully on his rear. When he looked next to him, he saw that his brother had also been released from the magician's hold. They scrambled to their feet and watched as their guns and weapons stuck themselves to the ceiling with the assistance of more blue haze. Sam could probably retrieve them, seeing as he was approximately the height of a full-grown giraffe, but he thought it unwise to be making moves against the powerful witch at the moment. They hadn't come to hurt him, after all.

The witch gazed interestedly at the weapons on the ceiling. "Seraph blades? Now, now. You haven't been stealing, have you? Mr. Lightwood wouldn't be pleased to hear about that, I'm sure."

"They were given to us," said Sam, glancing at Dean. The man's head snapped back down to look at them. "By, uh… Jake and Alex. At the… the… what was it called?"

"Institute. We were in an institute."

He narrowed his eyes at the two of them suspiciously, and stalked closer. "Why would they give Seraph blades to mundanes?" His fingers flickered and blue haze coiled around their feet. He could feel the gentle tightness around his ankles, ready to slam him back into the wall at a moment's notice.

Another figure appeared at the door just then, carrying what looked to be grocery bags. Almost tribal-looking tattoos covered him head to toe, and an empty quiver was slung over his shoulder. He froze at the door, staring at the scene before him. He looked vaguely familiar to Dean.

"What's going on?" he said warily, placing the bags on the floor and picking his way over to them. "Who are these people? Why are there weapons on the ceiling?"

"It appears," said the witch, "that these two men broke in. Did you give them clearance to have Seraph weapons?"

"What? No, of course n—" The man paused, squinting at the brothers and surveying them. After a few moments, he sighed. "No, not to _them._ I did give a new shipment to their angel friend a few months back."

"I _knew_ I recognized you!" exclaimed Dean, grinning at him. "Alex, right?"

'Alex' scowled at Dean and glanced irritatedly to his companion, who was trying to hold back laughter.

"They're harmless," muttered the tattooed man to the witch, and immediately the blueish smoke vanished. The witch watched as he returned to the brown paper bags and carried them to the kitchen, then turned to the Winchester siblings and extended a hand in greeting.

"Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn. Who might you two burglars be?" he said with a patronizing smile. Dean crossed his arms, effectively rejecting Magnus's handshake. They both stayed silent in response to his inquiry. "I won't bite, promise. The worst I'll do is talk so much about the truly unnerving fashion choices that child stars made in the late nineteen-nineties that by the time I'm through, you'll want to claw your ears out."

"We didn't come to make small talk with you," said Sam tersely.

"Yes, I'd gathered that when I came home to find you rifling through my DVDs drawer," said Magnus, sarcasm dripping from his every word. "But unless you start talking, you'll be the Clave's problem."

'The Clave' didn't sound like a particularly horrifying fate, but neither Sam nor Dean had even the slightest inkling of what it was, and neither wanted to find out, so they glanced at each other and took a quick breath.

"Look, alright?" began Sam. "We're not here to hurt you, we just want to know where you put them."

Magnus's eyebrows raised. He chuckled. "While it's adorable that you think you could hurt me, I'm afraid that I haven't a clue what you're talking about."

"Cut the act," said Dean exasperatedly. "We know you're a witch, and we know you've been snatching girls off the corners of streets, doing God knows what to them, and dumping them somewhere. All we want is that 'somewhere'," reasoned Dean and then, with a few moments of consideration, added, "And that you stop, of course."

Magnus was temporarily speechless, and Dean got the impression that this was a very rare feat. After his shock subsided to offense, he narrowed his eyes at them. "Check your sources, _mundane._ I haven't been _snatching_ anyone."

Sam and Dean exchanged an unconvinced look, which apparently only angered Magnus further, since a moment later they were hanging upside-down, blue mist sailing around their toes.

"Again? Really?" sighed Dean in frustration, more to himself than anyone else. The jewelry-clad man crept closer to them, eyes narrowing. He stopped a few feet away.

"You break into my house, insult my sexuality, call me a kidnapper and a rapist, and you're upset because you're _uncomfortable_?"

"I didn't call you a rapist," objected Dean, feeling the blood rush to head. "I _implied_ that you were." Beside him, he could hear Sam let out a groan.

Magnus scoffed, and threw them back against the wall. Dean's head throbbed painfully as his skull connected with the drywall, his vision tunneling for a few seconds. "How's that? Is that better? You guys need anything? Some snacks?"

"A condom?" came the tattooed man's voice from the kitchen, evoking a smile out of Magnus. Dean was very confused and when he glanced to his brother, he saw that Sam shared his disarray.

"I'm really proud of you for that reference, babe," said the witch to his husband, his previously sardonic tone shifting into a kind one, "but this is not the time." Magnus turned his attention back to them with a new sense of calm. "I think somewhere in your frantic and literal witch hunt, you started chasing the wrong person. The only person I've ever kidnapped is Marie Antionette, and that was… premeditated."

Dean chose to ignore whatever the witch was blabbering on about, and simply said, "Well, if it wasn't you, who was it?"

Magnus shrugged. The second man appeared in the doorway once more, this time without the bags. "Have all these kidnappings been in Manhattan, save for one in Jersey?"

Dean frowned, narrowing his eyes. "Yeah. How'd you know that?" The man sighed, walking over to join the witch, and crossed his arms.

"I think we've been hunting the same person," he explained. "He's been giving us problems for awhile now."

"That new little warlock you were talking about earlier?" asked the witch with mild interest.

"Mhm."

"What's his name? I know you told me, but my memory isn't what it used to be. Perhaps the four hundred years are catching up to me."

"Kirin."

"With… dragon wings, right?"

"And horse hooves."

"Oh, dear. That's a dreadful combination."

"Yes. I prefer your cat eyes."

The two men smiled fondly at each other. What did he even mean by that? Magnus's eyes were as brown and un-catlike as ever.

Dean felt the witch's magic falter for a moment, and he looked quickly to Sam. If Magnus continued to be distracted by him, they might be able to make a run for it. Sam seemed to know what he was thinking, though, and shook his head. Dean cleared his throat. The witch's magic re-solidified as he turned his attention back to the two brothers.

"Well, this is great!" he said, smiling widely at everyone assembled. "We can hunt the witch togeth—"

"Warlock," corrected the witch. The warlock. The whatever, thought Dean.

"Sure, warlock. We can hunt him together. What else do you know about him?"

The tattooed man stared at him for a few seconds, his expression caught somewhere between offended and incredulous, before he said, "Kirin Rendill, dragon wings, horse hooves, thirty-three but looks around fifteen. We think he lives around the Upper-East Side, but we don't have an address."

Sam nodded slowly. "Okay, let's go get this guy."

The witch looked at his watch, frowning. "Now? It's nearly one in the morning."

"What, did you have other plans?"

"Why, yes, we did," replied the witch, with a sultry look at his partner, who's cheeks flamed pink. Dean's eyebrows shot skywards, and he shared a look with Sam.

"Uh, well, cancel 'em. There's a man out there terrorizing women, and it's our job— _your_ job," he said with a pointed look at 'Alex', "to catch him."

'Alex' blinked. Nodded. "Okay, yeah," he sighed, reaching into his back pocket to draw out his phone. "Let me get Jace. Can you portal us over there?" Magnus snapped his fingers, and a swirling purple vortex appeared from thin air. The Winchesters shouted at it's sudden arrival, rushing to cough and straighten their jackets after degradingly high-pitched yelps.

The tattooed man stepped into the abyss after a quick kiss farewell to his husband and a text to, presumably, Jace, without so much as a nervous blink. Dean and Sam, not wanting to seem frightened or unknowledgeable about such things as swirling purple death vortexes, followed suit, and set out to catch the bastard warlock.


End file.
